


I Know That It's You I Need to Take the Blues Away

by karyatid



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-24 19:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10748298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karyatid/pseuds/karyatid
Summary: What they have, it's been a thing for missions, situations fraught with adrenaline or wrapped in bone-tired relief when they made it through.For jiokra, May the 4th be With You!





	I Know That It's You I Need to Take the Blues Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jiokra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/gifts).



They're a few hours into hyperspace when Chewie manages to convince Leia to get some rest. Lando watches from the doorway, sees her small and tense on the bunk while Chewie covers her with a blanket and tells her to sleep, _it will be alright, princess_. She only closes her eyes when he sits on the floor beside the bunk, giant paw covering her tiny hand

There's a noise from the other cabin and Chewie turns to Lando, the look in his eyes hardening in a way that makes Lando's stomach sink. 

_Go check up on the cub,_ Chewie tells him, a hint of threat in his voice, meaning 'I'll know if you mess up'.

"Sure," Lando says, aiming to sound normal, because he needs to pretend, not that everything is ok, but that he hasn't broken every friendship he's ever forged (the city lost to him now, his people left behind). 

The noise turns out to be the Skywalker kid wrestling with a pack of drinking gel one-handedly, another already on the floor. 

"Hey, no," Lando says, "Give it here"

Skywalker actually struggles for a minute before handing it over with a glare. Lando rips it open for him and gives it back. The kid winces at the taste, but gulps it down anyway. Lando picks up another pack from the shelf beside the bunk, and holds it up, questioning.

"Please," Skywalker says, his voice a hoarse whisper.

He drinks the other one as well, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "Thanks," he says. "Uh, Leia didn't tell me?"

It takes Lando a beat to get it. "I'm Lando," he says. "Lando Calrissian" And that's it, really. The Baron Administrator's gone, there's no point in trying for a charming swagger now. 

"I'm Luke," the kid says, something open and friendly in his expression even as he's perched on the edge on the Falcon's Med Bunk, cradling his arm that ends in nothing. He's got bruises all over his face and dark smears under his eyes to tell a tale of exhaustion. 

_Vader's looking for a Jedi_ , a tired stormtrooper had told him, incredulous, and Lando had pictured a ruthless wizard, straight out of the propaganda. It had seemed unlikely such a person would even exist, and if they did turning them over would be a small price to make his people safe. This is just a kid who's gone to war and come back shattered. 

Luke's staring at his arm, crestfallen look on his face and Lando feels a strange compulsion to fill the silence, draw him out of what seem to be some very miserable thoughts. 

"It'll be ok," he says, maybe overdoing it slightly on the fake cheerfulness. Skywalker looks up at him in honest confusion. "See," he says, pointing to the auto-tourniquet. "All green lights, means the, uh, tissue, is looking good. They'll be able to fit you with a prosthesis and you'll feel good as new." Ok, that is overdoing it, no question. 

"Yeah, Luke says, but he's already back to staring at his arm.

"Look, maybe try to rest a little?" Lando says, not expecting any response, but he must have hit the right tone somehow because Luke shifts to lie down, at least, although he only keeps his eyes closed for just a second before frowning and looking up to stare into the bulkhead, lost somewhere, and not in a good place by the looks of it. 

Lando heaves a put-upon sigh, but is really glad to have something to do to take his mind off. Off things. "Budge over" he says, settling himself on the opposite side of the bunk, stretching his legs out besides Luke's. 

"You from Corellia too?" he says, immediately regretting it because Corellia means Han, little stuff he's told Lando over the years, and he's not exactly the sharing type but they go way back and he's heard a thing or two. 

"Nah, Luke says. "Tatooine."

"Ouch," Lando says, exaggerating for effect, and pleased to see a lopsided smile in reward. "My condolences."

"'S not so bad," Luke says indignantly before almost laughing. "Or, yeah, ok, it kind of is."

"Your people miners?" 

"Moisture farmers," Luke says. "I thought it was so boring, I only wanted to get away. Even the Academy if they'd take me. And now," he blinks rapidly. 

"Can't have been much to do, place like that," Lando tries again, suddenly very determined not to let slip back to wherever he goes that makes his eyes look so haunted. 

Luke shakes his head. "Flew Skyhoppers, sometimes," he says. 

"Yeah? What kind did you have?" Flyboys. Lando's met a couple in his time and knows one when he sees one. They're easily distracted and that's what Luke needs now. 

"T-16," Luke says at once. "Fixed it myself, and." 

He talks, then, in fits and starts, and it's not terribly coherent and Lando doesn't really care about Skyhoppers, but it does the trick and after a few minutes Luke starts blinking really slowly, then closing his eyes, then falling asleep in the middle of something about power converters, Lando's kind of lost track at that point and also he just needs to rest his eyes for a while. 

He wakes to Leia shaking his shoulder, and there's no respite, maybe won't ever be, the impact of what he's done and the worry for Han hitting him at once. 

"I, uh," he says, before remembering that he's actually only looked after the kid, and doesn't need her forgiveness for that. "He couldn't sleep, so we chatted a while. Made him drink something."

Leia nods, serious, and goes back to tucking a blanket around Luke, then stroking his hair. Lando has no business asking now of all times, and something tells him Leia wouldn't take kindly to it ever, but he's suddenly curious how they all fit together, Han Leia, and this kid. 

\--

He puts it off until Luke's settled in the fleet Med Bay, still tired-looking but calmer, the naked grief in his eyes given way to determination. By that time Lando's been recruited into the rebellion and ordered to assist Chewie in preparing Han's rescue, effective immediately.

He tells him, haltingly and too fast, because Luke's still looks at him with such trust and he doesn't want to remember that look later. How he helped Vader set a trap, sold his friend for a promise he should have known was empty. 

The revulsion never comes, though. Luke just looks lost in thoughts a while and then says, "You weren't to know. This is on Vader, all of it." 

\--

"This is getting pretty tiresome, you know," Lando says. Or maybe he just thinks it. He's lost track a little, and he has a feeling his voice doesn't sound right. You'd think they'd care, since he kind of needs it to answer their questions, but that would probably be giving them too much credit. 

Imperial remnants come in all shapes and sizes. Shady officials, eager to cling to power. Middle men, protesting they're just doing their job. Occasionally they're guys like this. Bunch of 'troopers, with a rogue commander, continuing a struggle they must realise is hopeless, and all the more dangerous for it. 

"You'll tell us the location of the rebel command headquarters," the guy says, and really? He couldn't get caught be someone halfway competent? You always start with the small stuff. 

'Don't kid yourself you'll resist,' one of the old-timers had told him, back when he first took up with the rebellion. 'Try to stall, slip in false stuff if you can. It's all anyone's asking.'

They keep at it with a kind of dreary determination, and it takes a while, but when it gets too much he goes somewhere else. It's Luke that comes to mind, in the little hovel on Tatooine, both of them more nervous about confronting Jabba than they'd wanted to let on, and he'd kissed Luke on a whim, thinking it might take their minds of things, and Luke had blushed, but kissed him back. The first time Luke told him 'I trust you'.

His shoulder burns and there's a strange noise from somewhere, like a scream from a comm with the sound on the lowest setting. It takes him a while to get back to Luke, on Endor now, in a hut illuminated by firelight, clinging to each other on a narrow bed they'd kept almost falling out of. Tired but alive but when they kiss the kiss tastes like blood because his lip split when they hit him. 

There's shouting and blaster fire somewhere in the distance which seems wrong, it's their victory feast and they're safe now. Then Luke's leaning over him, the lights too harsh to be Endor, and he doesn't remember this at all. Luke touches him, and he flinches, expecting a blow that doesn't come. Luke's voice reaches him from far away even though he's right in front of Lando.

"... you ok? C'mon, look at me, please." Wide, worried blue eyes, it's just as if he's really here, in front of Lando. He needs to focus, needs to get back to the safe place in his mind where Luke is, but there's no pain, just a careful touch, Luke's fingers warm against his skin, as he tilts Lando's head up gently to look at him. His voice isn't coming from the that faraway place anymore, it's closer, much more like the real Luke. 

"You're really here," Lando says and then everything goes dark.

\--

"Told you I had a bad feeling about this," Lando says as Luke tears through the shuttle's Med Kit, his mouth a tense, unhappy line. Lando's a little hazy on how they made their way back here, exactly, he has a vague impression of limping alongside Luke and then sort of floating the last bit. 

He's not sure why Luke looks so miserable, from where he's sitting (lying, really), things are great. The shuttle's environment controls seem to be mostly working, Luke's put a splint on his arm, and his forehead is numb from a bacta patch. Artoo had met up with them somewhere along the way and has apparently got some sort of comm link working, judging from the noises coming from the cockpit. 

"How long 'til they can pick us up?" Lando says, his voice raw and scratchy.

"A standard day, or so," Luke says. "Leia wasn't sure, but they're on the way now. You're too cold," he adds, and then proceeds to stomp around and snap at Artoo until they've located a thermal blanket that he spreads carefully over Lando. He checks the bacta patch again, his fingers warm and gentle, but he's not looking at him. Lando has a vague feeling he's done something wrong, but he's at a complete loss to figure out what. 

"And, uh, no-one's coming after us, right?"

"No," Luke says, short and angry. Then he sighs, suddenly tired and defeated, his shoulders slumping. "No, I. Took care of them. We're safe now." He sits down on the edge of the bunk, back turned towards Lando.

Lando reaches out to wrap his hand around Luke's wrist, the flesh-and-blood one.

"Hey," he says, tugging a little when Luke won't look at him. "It's ok now. We're safe." 

"Yeah," Luke says. He's sounding a little wobbly. "I know, it's just." He runs the back of his hand over his eyes. "They took you to get to me. And I can't." He cuts himself off, shakes his head. Lando waits, rubs his thumb over the soft inside of Luke's wrist. Finally, Luke turns to look at him. 

"C'mere," Lando says, shuffling to the side of the bunk to make room. Luke hesitates, but then he kicks off his boots and shrugs out of his jacket. He crawls in under the blanket, and it's maybe a little bit too cramped, and moving his broken arm wasn't the best idea Lando's had lately, but Luke is warm and solid next to him, very careful as he nudges Lando to shift so he can rest his head on Luke's shoulder. 

He's too wired to sleep, keeps shivering even though he should be warmer by now. It's shock, probably, and a fear he can't shake, that he'd wake up back with the Imps to find that Luke coming for him was just a dream. Luke's not sleeping either, just stares at nothing. 

"What're you thinking?" he says, hoping he'll feel better hearing Luke's voice.

"I'm getting them to ground you for a year, and after that you're never going anywhere without me or Chewie for backup," Luke says, deadpan. 

"Way to make a guy feel trusted, Skywalker," Lando says. Luke snorts, and turns to kiss him on the forehead.

"Try to sleep," he says, and then, as if he's felt Lando's fears, "I'll be here."

\--

He wakes up in the Med Bay on the Frigate, hungry and sore all over, but well enough to want to get out of there immediately. He has a vague memory of Luke sitting by his bedside, and then being called away. 

The doctor's reluctant to let him go, but relents once he promises to take it easy 'For at least a week, General Calrissian, this is important', plenty of fluids, no hyperspace jumps, the usual stuff. 

He nearly changes his mind on the way to Luke's quarters, and hesitates again once he's standing before his door. What they have, it's been a thing for missions, situations fraught with adrenaline or wrapped in bone-tired relief when they made it through. What if there's nothing here and now, when he's just going to see Luke in his quarters? But Luke came for him, in that Force-forsaken nest of Imps and he can still feel Luke's hand on his neck as he leaned in to touch his forehead against Lando's, and he has to know. 

Luke's sitting on his bed, meditating, but lights up at seeing Lando in a way that makes something twist inside his chest. He's run away from it, before, but maybe not this time. 

"They let you out already?" Luke says, patting the space beside him on the bed. "Wait, they gave you the all-clear to leave, right? I don't want a pissed-off Med Droid banging on my door." 

"Oh?" Lando says as he comes to sit beside Luke, still moving a little more stiffly than he'd like. "You have plans, or something?"

"I might have," Luke says, taking Lando's hand and tangling their fingers. It feels strangely intimate, just sitting here, shoulder to shoulder, and Lando's suddenly nervous, which is ridiculous, they've torn each other's clothes off a few times over the years. 

He's still stuck on what to say next when Luke raises his free hand to cup his jaw, stroke his thumb lightly across Lando's cheekbone. He smiles, so bright and happy before leaning in to kiss him, and Lando knows then, though he doesn't have the words for it. Knows that what they have could last beyond the war.

End


End file.
